O'Driscoll finds a balm for his wounds

They call it 'the shark-bite'," Brian O'Driscoll says with a dry cackle as he peels off his shirt to reveal the jagged scarring that makes it look as if a hulking Great White, rather than a couple of All Blacks, have taken a chunk out of his right shoulder. His bare skin may be pale in the late afternoon light but the wound is still raw and red. O'Driscoll stands in his parents' kitchen in an elegant house in Clontarf, on the leafy fringes of Dublin, with his head cocked to one side as he examines the damage.

"It was more impressive three months ago," O'Driscoll jokes. "You should have seen it soon after [the surgeons] opened up the shoulder, reset the joint and tightened it up with 16 staples. It looked like a shark had tried to rip my arm off."

O'Driscoll, instead, was the victim of an alleged spear-tackle carried out by the New Zealand captain, Tana Umaga, and their hooker Keven Mealamu. "It was the biggest game of my life," O'Driscoll says as he pulls his shirt back on, "and it lasted 41 seconds. There I was, captaining the Lions in a massive first Test, and suddenly I'm up in the air and things are turning bad. It's the first time I've ever felt powerless on a rugby field. If you're caught in a ruck and your leg's bent horribly you feel uncomfortable and just want everyone to get off quickly. This was different. This felt like I was in the lap of the gods.

"I knew I had to get my head out of the way. My neck, also, would not have easily withstood that impact. When you consider the fact that the fall dislocated my shoulder it's safe to assume that my neck or head would not have fared much better. And I've never felt such sustained pain. If you get friction on an ankle ligament injury it feels like torture. But that lasts five seconds. This pain stayed at that level for 20 minutes before they finally found some morphine."

In the ensuing four months O'Driscoll has reflected on the brutal cause of that injury, from which he is yet to recover, and the inability of the All Blacks to acknowledge the severity of the tackle they inflicted. Umaga eventually left a curt message on O'Driscoll's mobile: "Tana here, phone me." For O'Driscoll, "it hurt a lot then but it's no longer personal. Maybe there was a feeling of guilt in Tana's reaction. I asked if that was a reason for his long silence and he said he just wanted to keep his players together. Fair enough. Everyone to their own."

O'Driscoll's answers come thick and fast when asked what he has learnt from this and other tangled disappointments on tour. "I've learnt a lot. I've learnt most of all that big opportunities come around very rarely and, when they do, you must grab them. I've learnt that New Zealand is a tough place to tour. I've also learnt, as a captain, how to deal with unfamiliar personalities in a large party."

Sir Clive Woodward and Alastair Campbell, two "personalities" who are so different to the 26-year-old O'Driscoll, endured wretched tours. Yet O'Driscoll, in his new book, tries not to trash their diminished reputations still further. He defends Woodward in print - stressing that "Clive has copped a heapful of criticism which I consider unwarranted". In the midst of that same July 9 diary entry, O'Driscoll suggests that "Clive is going to spend a day with me in Dublin in August, after which he has to submit an official report - but I have some initial thoughts of my own".

I ask O'Driscoll if he and Woodward have formulated an authoritative dossier which will help future Lions tours avoid the mistakes made in New Zealand. O'Driscoll looks at me coolly. "What dossier?" When reminded of the lines in his book he shrugs. His attitude towards Woodward is now less effusive. "He spoke to me about coming over to Ireland to discuss the tour but he hasn't done that. I don't know why - he hasn't called since we got back. Not once."

Since Woodward markets himself as a great communicator, who is supposedly adept and thorough in liaising with his players, such negligence seems outrageous. It is also shocking that Woodward has not even phoned O'Driscoll to inquire about his surgery or the progress of a painfully slow rehabilitation. "You said it," O'Driscoll murmurs. "But there's no benefit in me saying I'm disappointed in Clive. I just thought we were meant to meet and talk. We haven't."

Many of Woodward's flaky ideas - involving dirge-like ditties like The Power Of Four and painting a giant mosaic of national flags - appeared less useful to O'Driscoll than an old-fashioned rugby technique. "A gang of us went drinking in Cardiff before the tour and we decided that was the best bonding session ever. The giant painting was OK but it's still a contrived situation. A beer isn't a situation. It's a real life way to get to know your team-mates."

This is O'Driscoll at his most likeable - as when emphasising that he never felt worse than during a 10-week period on the wagon during pre-season. "I felt awful. I'll never do something that stupid again." And yet Woodward and Campbell were quickly in their paranoid stride in New Zealand - convinced they were being spied on and censoring Geordan Murphy's column in The Guardian. They replaced Murphy's admission that the players had enjoyed a "few beers" with the words "we went for a relaxing stroll".

O'Driscoll shakes his head. "The same thing happened when 2,000 people turned up to a training session. Alastair decided we should say it was 5,000. There's no need for that - but that's the way he felt he could promote things. I guess he doesn't know any different. His expertise isn't rugby - it's in the media. I think, for a good media relationship on a Lions tour, you need a combination of the two."

It seems insulting that a whispering Campbell should have continually lurked behind the bright and witty O'Driscoll - as if the Lions captain was about to face an inquisition from Jeremy Paxman rather than a plain old rugby press conference. "I was told what to say - up to a point. But Alastair gave me some good guidelines. Not everything he did was a disaster. I got on well with the guy but you wonder how it might have been if (a) he wasn't involved or (b) he didn't embellish the truth."

In a strange twist, however, O'Driscoll claims to be unaware of the notorious photo-shoot Campbell engineered before the first Test - with Woodward and Gavin Henson being snapped together in a fake conciliatory pose without the knowledge or consent of the Welsh star they had just dropped. "I didn't know about that," O'Driscoll insists. "I can't be in the loop on everything during a Test week."

O'Driscoll does at least know that Henson has used a book to launch a stinging attack - accusing the Irish captain of dirty play and spiky gamesmanship against Wales. "Gavin is his own man," O'Driscoll says diplomatically. "I was a little worried about him on tour because he was so quiet. But we never fell out and I can't stop him saying these things. You really never know if this is what he truly thinks or if he's selling a book. I just think it's unfair to complain about individual players. I've spoken about Clive - but I haven't said anything bad. It's not for me to say anything more about him or Alastair or Gavin in public. That's for me to keep up here."

He taps his head and then smiles sadly. "All that great promise delivered so little. I look back and think the tour could have been full of legendary wins but, instead, I've just got a dislocated shoulder to show for it." At least O'Driscoll, in the next few months, will return to the game he has illuminated so gloriously during the six years he has played Test rugby. He will still miss the autumn internationals - including a ferocious showdown between Ireland and New Zealand - but he appears determinedly philosophical. "I'm not into revenge. Anyway, I've got something which will blow you away. . ."

O'Driscoll disappears into another room and, after a long search, comes back clutching a letter from a 14-year-old New Zealand girl who wrote to him soon after he was so badly injured. He turns to a poem she has also written for him. It's called The Brian-Tamer and, in a curiously warm and lovely way, it transcends the terrifying moment when O'Driscoll was "speared" and fills the Lions captain with the sudden certainty that not everyone in New Zealand wished him harm.

"I love that poem," O'Driscoll says after reading it aloud. "A similar thing happened to me when I got a text from my friend Donal O'Flynn. At 17 he broke his neck playing rugby. He's now a paraplegic and he sent me an amusing and touching message after I got hurt. I fell straight out of my huff then. Who knows? The Lions are going to South Africa in 2009. I wouldn't mind another crack then. . ."

Especially without Woodward and Campbell, I suggest. O'Driscoll laughs quietly. "You know what? Clive would probably get it so much better second time round. Even Alastair would surely improve. But, yeah, they'll probably be busy doing other things. That's OK. I'd prefer to focus on the rugby next time."

Fan's film of tackle sent to IRB

A new video recording of the tackle that resulted in Brian O'Driscoll dislocating his shoulder, forcing him out of the Lions tour, has been sent to medical officials at the International Rugby Board.

The video, taken from a different angle to existing television footage, was filmed by an anonymous Irish fan, who was supporting the Lions. The video cassette was delivered to medical officials in Dublin who then sent it to their contemporaries at the IRB.

It is believed to show clear and graphic evidence that O'Driscoll was subjected to a spear tackle by Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu.

O'Driscoll's parents, Frank and Geraldine, who both work as GPs in Dublin, have been "deeply traumatised" by the tackle. Frank O'Driscoll said that he would prefer to leave it to the rugby authorities to take "appropriate action" but he admitted that "my family feels a burning sense of injustice".